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COPyRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



CHARACTER 
Some Talks to Young Men 



Character 

Some Talks to Young Men 



By 

THE REV. JAMES CLAYTON MITCHELL 

Rector of Calvary Church, German- 
town, Philadelphia 




PHILADELPHIA 

GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



UBR'i^Y of CONGRESS 
Two Uovves Re':;eWed 

NUV 23 1908 

Gopyrirfnt tn!ry 



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Copyright, 1908, by 

George W. Jacobs & Comfany 

Published iVovetnber, igoS 



All rights reserved 
Printed in U. S. A. 



5 §• In Loving Memory 



M, B. R. 
Dec, //, /^6>7 



<« TAey climbed the steep ascent of Heaven 
Through perils toil and pain.''* 



PREFACE 

These talks to young men make no 
special claim to originality. Most of them 
were given before the Stevens Institute of 
Technology, Hoboken, N. J. . In memory 
of one " loved long since, and lost awhile," 
and at his earnest request they are pub- 
lished. 

J. C. M. 



CONTENTS 

I. Knowledge and Character . 1 1 

II. Sacrifice and Character . 27 

III. The Evolution of the Man . 41 

IV. Moral Worth and Spiritual 

Character . . . -57 

V. Service and Character . . 75 

VI. The Idea and the Ideal . . 91 

VII. Every Man at His Best . .105 

VIII. Visions and Character . ; 121 



I 



CHAPTER I 
KNOWLEDGE AND CHARACTER 



CHAPTER I 

KNOWLEDGE AND CHARACTER 

" And this is life eternal, that they should know Thee the 
only true God, and Him whom Thou didst send, even Jesus 
Christ."— 3?. John 17 : j. 

There seems to have been no word 
more often on the lips of Christ than the 
word ** Life." He came into the world 
that we might have life. His parables are 
illustrations of its range. His miracles are 
examples of its power. To point out its 
meaning, to show its value, to restore the 
lost ideal of it, and to bring within men's 
reach the power to attain that ideal, — thus, 
we might sum up His teaching and His 
work. 

It was the effort of the Apostles to bring 
the life of Christ to men. They press 
home the great fact of that life, of its 
beauty, its completeness, its heroism. 
They point out the means of its communi- 
cation. They seek to reconstruct man in 



14 CHARACTER 

accord with it. They tell how that life 
has a message for the poor, the sorrowful, 
the sick, the suffering : how it has a word 
for the doubter and for the believer ; for 
the joyous and cheerful, for the well and 
strong : — how for all it has a strength, a 
power and a blessing. They hold up that 
life to men as the solution of their diffi- 
culties, as the secret of all that is worth 
having and worth knowing. 

Look at St. Paul's majestic way of 
preaching Christ. Is the difficulty that of 
the Law ? Christ is the explanation of it. 
Is it the question of faith ? Christ is the 
end of that. Is it what men shall say upon 
the witness-stand ? Christ is the example 
to be followed. Is it the dread of death 
that kills hope ? Christ has brought life 
and immortality to light. Is it the problem 
of pain that crushes ? The Crucifixion of 
Christ casts a deep glow upon that. 

St. John, also, has his own manner of 
bringing home to men the life of Christ. 
He does it in his own practical way. He 
is not a mere dreamer, as some suppose. 
His duty was to answer many of the intel- 



KNOWLEDGE AND CHARACTER 1 5 

lectual difficulties of his day, and that, 
surely, was most practical. It is true that 
he is not like St. Paul, or St. Peter, or 
St. James in his handling of truth, but he 
does not deal with it on the same ground, 
or for the same immediate purpose. He 
is intellectual and transcendental, but he 
has such problems to deal with. He has in 
mind the needs of his own city, Ephesus, 
and his application of the* life of Christ 
ministers to those needs. Is it, as in the 
case of His Gospel, some error or difficulty 
springing from a false view of the world ? 
That Gospel is written " that ye might be- 
lieve that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of 
God, and that believing, ye might have 
life through His Name." 

What is life ? It has been the question 
of questions from the beginning. Philoso- 
phers have wrangled over it. Logicians 
have striven to define it. Through all its 
long experience the human mind has 
sought an explanation of this mystery. 
The man of science takes life physical and 
seeks to gain its secret. The metaphysi- 
cian examines life in its inner experience 



1 6 CHARACTER 

and seeks to tell what it is. The theo- 
logian looks at life in its higher and 
spiritual bearings, and tries to get an 
answer to its difficulties. 

St. John had to handle the question of 
life as it had to do with a false system of 
thought in the city of Ephesus. That 
system held up '* Knowledge " as the ob- 
ject of life. If a man could know all the 
mysteries of the Eleusinia, if he could take 
in all the varied philosophy of the Gnostic 
schools — then he might be near the heart 
of things, and touch life at its centre. 

This is what they taught. And St. John 
deals with them on their own ground. 
He says, " Yes ! you are right. Knowl- 
edge is Life. But that knowledge is very 
different from what you think it. It is not 
found in a philosophy, although it has 
one. It is not wrapped up in a Creed, al- 
though a Creed is necessary. Knowledge 
is more than that. The mystery of life 
cannot be solved in your way. It can 
be approached only through a kindred 
mystery, the mystery of a life. It must be 
found in a concrete example. It must be 



KNOWLEDGE AND CHARACTER 1 7 

personal. It must come to men at the 
centre of their being. It must appeal to 
the intellect as a reasonable thing. It 
must speak to the heart as a lovely thing. 
It must claim the will as the sphere of its 
working. It must be above man's intellect 
in order that it may satisfy his needs. It 
can only be known little by little. Life 
must be felt as what it really is, and the 
only way to know life is by living." 

** What is life? " they ask. " I will give 
you the answer," says St. John, ** in the 
very terms of Him who is Life, who came 
to bring life and to bring it more 
abundantly." ''This is the life eternal — 
the only life worth seeking — that they 
may know Thee, the Only True God, and 
Him whom Thou didst send, even Jesus 
Christ." 

Knowledge is life. But what is it ''to 
know " ? We speak of knowing history, 
or chemistry, or Greek, or Latin, or 
botany. We speak of knowing a friend. 
To-day, we feel that it is only the specialist 
in any branch of study that really knows. 
" To know " is first a matter of the mind. 



I8 CHARACTER 

The specialist must collect facts and draw 
deductions from them. He must make 
experiments. He must get at the bottom 
of things. He must have his axioms and 
his corollaries. He must apply them. 
He must be on the lookout for new truth, 
and for new applications of the old truth. 
And yet he must do more than tax his 
brain. If he do only that, he will never 
" know " his subject. Knowledge is also 
a matter of the will. It has a moral side, 
for it means concentration and persever- 
ance. It calls out the practical, for it 
demands patient investigation and work. 
Does a man really ** know " chemistry, 
when he has a store of facts about atoms 
and molecules and their combinations ? 
Does the musician really " know " music 
when he has a stock of information about 
the best oratorios and operas, and can tell 
you when they were written ? Does the 
business man " know " his business when 
he has read about its methods ? No ! 
There must be the constant application, 
the patient plodding and the ever willing 
practice. 



KNOWLEDGE AND CHARACTER 19 

And the specialist will never " know " 
his study, unless he love it. Real knowl- 
edge not only means a mind stored with 
facts, and a will intent upon applying 
them ; it also means a heart enthusiastic 
about them. Who is the successful 
lawyer ? Is he merely the well-read man 
who can go into court and argue a case 
correctly? It demands more than that. 
It means, in addition, a love for the prin- 
ciples of his profession, an enthusiasm for 
its practice. To " know " a subject means 
a mind to study it, a will to practice it, 
and a heart to love it. Knowledge is not 
merely a mental operation. It is a matter 
of morals also. It has to do with the 
heart and with the will. 

It is just the same in our knowledge of 
a person. Do our enemies or our friends 
really know us ? Who can better set forth 
our life, our motive, our purpose ? Surely 
he who tries to understand us, and looks 
at things from our point of view. He 
who puts himself in our place. He who 
sympathizes with us. He who loves us. 

Life, in its highest and noblest sense, 



20 CHARACTER 

is a " knowledge " because it claims every 
part of a man. Life is a knowledge of 
Truth, for it claims the intellect. Life is 
a knowledge of Love, for it claims the 
heart. Life is a knowledge of Right, for 
it means the fullest activity. St. John, you 
see, is not off in the dreamland of tran- 
scendentalism when he quotes these words 
of his Master as an answer to the perverted 
view of life held by his fellow-citizens. 
He is intensely practical. For while he 
tells them, "This is the life eternal to 
' know ' Thee the only true God, and Him 
whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ," 
he goes on to say what that ** knowledge" 
is : '' He that * loveth ' not, knoweth not 
God," and, '' If ye love Me, * keep ' My 
commandments." 

Knowledge is life. Where shall we 
find it? We all want to live with the 
largest, healthiest life possible. And we 
can live thus, only with the life of God. 
God is All-Holy. ** All our efforts to 
know Him must go along with moral 
purification." Approach to God means 
for us, cleansing from sin. St. John began 



KNOWLEDGE AND CHARACTER 21 

his Gospel by asserting the Divinity of 
Christ : *' In the beginning was the Word, 
and the Word was with God, and the Word 
was God." And here he used our Lord's 
own words to show that He claimed to be 
what He was : ** This is the Hfe eternal 
to know Thee the only true God, and 
Jesus Christ whom Thou didst send." 
God can be adequately^ known only 
through Christ. " The only begotten Son 
who is in the bosom of the Father, He 
hath declared Him." The life of God as 
shown to us in Jesus Christ, — what an 
ideal it is ! If it were not for the fact that 
He is our Saviour, we should despair of 
the fact that He can be our Example. We 
must ** know " Jesus Christ if we are to 
live at all, if we would draw near to the 
great mystery of life itself, if we would 
draw nearer to God. 

" In Him was life, and the life was the 
light of men," that life — ideal, expanding, 
full, glorious ; that life on earth which found 
its issue in the life of Heaven. Look at 
Him in the wonderful balance of His 
character ! For hundreds of years men 



22 CHARACTER 

have been looking at Him, but have not 
found a flaw. The Son of God — Divine 
— but the human qualities in deepest and 
truest fulness. In Him is the ** worth 
while " of things. Above men, yet one 
with them, a magnet drawing the world. 

The head-tones of humanity are there. 
All the philosophies of life rank not with 
the philosophy of Jesus. Who is the in- 
spiration for better tenements and labor 
conditions and fair play, man with man ? 
Who lifts the dulness from the daily work 
and monotonous round and makes the 
office and the shop the antechamber of 
glory ? Who answers the questions that 
spring to our lips when the world and its 
intellectual difficulties and its hard prob- 
lems come upon us ? Who is in advance 
of ''the social question" and long ago 
solved its enigmas ? Where is the moral 
force that is making the world " ethical " 
in spite of itself ? The power of that life — 
the life of Jesus — is the glory of men. 

The heart-tones of humanity are there, 
also, incarnate in Him. The burden- 
bearer, the mourner, the sinner, instinc- 



KNOWLEDGE AND CHARACTER 23 

lively turn to Jesus because their appeal to 
Him is not in vain. No empty echo of 
man's cry comes back to mock him. That 
throbbing heart feels my trial, and the sad- 
ness and the sorrow are lightened and the 
cry for pardon is heard. That cleansing 
grace which turns this wilderness into a 
standing water, and this flint-stone into a 
springing well is mine, and my life is worth 
while and good and noble. 

Yes, not only the heart-tone and the 
head-tone, but the deep bass of action is 
there. ** To do *' and *' to dare " are in- 
carnate in Him. He purges work of its 
dross. For " duty " we read ** privilege." 
We buckle on our armor and go out to 
battle. The giants which seemed so strong 
fall back at our coming. The will is braced 
with a tonic which defies the germ of evil 
and fights off disease. From the hills of 
faith where blow the breezes of eternity we 
view our destiny, and the light of common 
day is transfigured into the vision of the 
Christ — the light of life. Is it not so? 
Oh ! that I may know Him and the power 
of life ! That is my supreme need. 



24 CHARACTER 

'* In Him is life." Life is what He alone 
has. Life is what He alone can give. 
Life is what we want, a life that shall go 
on growing throughout the ages of eter- 
nity. *' And this is life eternal that they 
should know Thee the only true God, and 
Him whom Thou didst send, even Jesus 
Christ," and a knowledge of Jesus Christ 
means Character. 

Character is life. This is what I would 
tell you as you go forth from your Alma 
Mater. Character is life. That is the 
only abiding fact in a world of change. 
That is the only permanent fact that 
remains to a man when this world is 
over. We may be successful in our work. 
We may do much for the increase of man's 
comfort and happiness. We may reach 
our ambition. We may achieve a reputa- 
tion. Will we also gain that without which 
all else sinks into insignificance ? 

The greed of material wealth is strong ; 
the wheels of competition go around at a 
dangerous rate ; the struggle for existence 
grows more difficult and the survival of 
the fittest is a commonplace. Men are 



KNOWLEDGE AND CHARACTER 25 

needed to stop the drifts and to stem the 
currents of national and individual selfish- 
ness. Men are needed to vindicate faith 
in human character, and to declare the 
nobility of life ; men of indomitable will 
and strongest courage. 

** To be " not " to have " is the exponent 
of life. And we must congratulate our- 
selves that our lot is cast in a time of stress 
and strain and push and rush, for in that 
crucible the alloy is beaten out from the 
gold, and character may shine more glori- 
ous than ever. And when we speak of 
character we feel the pulse of religion and 
sound the depths of Christianity. Char- 
acter is life. 



CHAPTER II 
SACRIFICE AND CHARACTER 



CHAPTER II 

SACRIFICE AND CHARACTER 

«* And he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it." — 
St. Matthew lo : jg. 

This is a wonderful world in which we 
live. As we look about us, we see the 
glories of the heavens and the beauties of 
earth. As we read the rocks, we gain 
some slight apprehension of the tremen- 
dous power that founded them. As we 
study the animate life of creation, we won- 
der again at the intricate balance of forces 
and at the thought and purpose that un- 
fold the mighty system of things. And 
as we behold, the beauty of it all grows 
upon us. We stand in admiration before 
the color of the natural universe. We 
hear with attentive ear its myriad harmo- 
nies, and drink in with eagerness the life 
that seems so triumphant, and we say, 
** How beautiful ! " 

Yet, as we look and consider, we find 



30 CHARACTER 

writ large across this beautiful world of 
ours a fact that challenges and compels 
our attention. It is that " struggle for ex- 
istence," that warfare, that fight of the in- 
animate with itself in the ghastly cataclysm 
and the fire-flowing volcano, that preying of 
the one kingdom of nature upon the other, 
that strife of bird with bird and beast with 
beast, that deadly hand-to-hand conflict 
of nature's forces. We stand and look 
upon it all, and we cry out, '' How awful ! " 

We go one step further, and consider 
man, creation's glory and crown of beauty. 
We see him in all the grace of physical 
beauty and power. We know him in all 
the phases of his manifold life : in his ten- 
derness toward the lower world about him, 
in his sympathy with his fellow man, in his 
vast reach above himself in spiritual capac- 
ity and intelligent purpose. We see him 
harnessing the force of nature to the char- 
iot of his comfort and we stand again and 
look. We contemplate and admire. Not 
less than Godlike seems to be his sceptre. 

But when we look closely at him we find 
the same flaw in his make-up that we saw 



SACRIFICE AND CHARACTER 3 1 

in nature. We find that there is something 
wrong with the machinery. There is a 
hitch in the working. Faults of intellect 
and flaws of heart display themselves. 
Weaknesses show out which we hardly 
dreamed of. Jealous rivalries maintain 
themselves along his history. And these 
many cracks in the wonderful building 
portend disaster and mar the beauty. 
Those graces in man which shine so glo- 
riously, are darkened by the near neigh- 
borhood of vices which are hideous. 

Once more we look at the works of man 
in science and poetry and art, and we see 
that in the perfect there is always a sus- 
picion of failure ; amid verses which catch 
up our soft souls in ecstasy, there is the 
sense that they might have been better ; in 
the beautiful painting or sculpture there is 
always the possibility of something more 
beautiful. 

And then when we begin to philosophize 
about it, we come upon the great law that 
underlies life — that law of the natural world 
" Struggle for existence," the poorer and 
weaker types going to the wall, the 



32 CHARACTER 

Stronger and hardier specimens establish- 
ing themselves, propagating themselves. 
It is so with races and with peoples, — those 
sturdier types of our Anglo-Saxon civiliza- 
tion asserting themselves and dominating 
the world, — those hardier races crowding 
out the weaker from leadership and ruling 
them. The progress of the world, the prog- 
ress of races, the progress of the individ- 
ual is born of that law of struggle, that law 
of sacrifice which conditions progress and 
makes it possible. This is what I mean : — 
Take the athlete ; whence all his supple- 
ness of limb, and litheness of body and 
hardness of muscle and power of endur- 
ance? All are the outcome of hard and 
severe training, all are possible only 
through struggle and sacrifice, the sacri- 
fice of ease and comfort and luxury. 
Sacrifice is the law of the athlete's prog- 
ress. Take any human power or faculty. 
The man who would attain great intel- 
lectual distinction, — how can he do it? 
Simply and solely by sacrificing his intel- 
lect. He must pore over his books. He 
must give up his brain to toil and work, he 



SACRIFICE AND CHARACTER 33 

must sacrifice his intellect in order that in- 
tellectual power and growth may be pos- 
sible. This law of improvement through 
sacrifice is a law of creation. Look at the 
seed which the farmer places in the earth 
in the springtime. It can attain perfection 
of life as the plant only by sacrificing it- 
self as the seed. Its higher life as a plant 
is possible only upon the condition of the 
sacrifice of itself as a seed. -This is the 
price — the price of sacrifice — that the 
mineral pays when it would climb to that 
higher kingdom of plant-life. This is the 
passport that the plant-life must show in 
order that it may reach the animal king- 
dom, — ^the giving up of the life that is, in 
order that the life that shall be may be 
evolved. This law of progress through 
struggle and sacrifice is writ large upon 
the natural world. ** He that loseth his 
life shall find it." 

And so when Jesus comes to enrich 
and ennoble human life, He does not 
change the fundamental laws of that na- 
ture with which His Father endowed us. 
He does not seek to stifle or to crush those 



34 CHARACTER 

instincts of the heart that make man worth 
saving. He seeks only to give them a new 
direction. His religion is the extension of 
that grace of creation, that law of higher 
life and progress, which we find working in 
all His world, — progress through sacrifice. 
'' He that loseth his life shall find it." 

When He would lay the foundation 
upon which man may raise the superstruc- 
ture of a new and enlightened and pro- 
gressive humanity, He does not do violence 
to the laws on which His world is modeled. 
He reasserts and reestablishes the prin- 
ciple of improvement through sacrifice. 
'' He that loseth his life shall find it." He 
brings into the domain of the moral and 
spiritual, that law which characterizes the 
physical. He does but extend into the 
spiritual realm the working of that princi- 
ple which the natural embodies. The law 
of moral worth and spiritual progress tran- 
scends the law of the natural life only in 
the sphere of its possibilities. Life through 
sacrifice ! That is the law of religion be- 
cause it is the inherent, the filial law of the 
life of Jesus. That is the life of Jesus, and 



SACRIFICE AND CHARACTER 35 

therefore the life of moral worth and spirit- 
ual character. "He that loseth his life 
shall find it." If we are filled with the im- 
pulse to make the most of ourselves, if we 
seek to rise to our privileges and embrace 
our opportunities, we can do it only by 
acting upon this word of Jesus : — " He that 
loseth his life shall find it," for it is the 
secret of life. Yes, loss, sacrifice, is the 
condition of progressive life. * Why is it 
that Calvary stands out as the drama of 
history ? Why is it that the universal ob- 
ject lesson is a cross upon a lonely hill ? 
Why is it that there gather the hopes and 
aspirations of men ? Why is it that we 
hold up the cross as the salvation of the 
world ? Why do we preach " Christ Cru- 
cified " in season and out of season ? Why 
do we set up the cross upon our churches 
and our altars ? "He that loseth his life 
shall find it." Is that not true? It was 
Voltaire, I think, who when asked by a 
friend how he could found a new and uni- 
versal religion, replied, " Get yourself cruci- 
fied and rise again," and when the un- 
believer said that, he hit upon the very 



36 CHARACTER 

principle and power that inspires religion 
and progress. Loss for gain ! Subordi- 
nation for sovereignty ! Life is not what 
we have but what we are. Life is char- 
acter. It is not a successful worldly career, 
but an inward bent, and within the realm 
of Character, loss is gain. " He that loseth 
his life shall find it." That struggle for the 
noble and lofty, that struggle against temp- 
tation, means a sacrifice, a giving up of the 
lower appetite and passions. 

Sacrifice has no place in that lower 
sphere of life. It may be easier to do as the 
rest of the world does, — gamble and drink 
and indulge the sensual appetites and 
swear a little and not bother about this 
higher life which involves struggle and 
sacrifice. If the bridge I build is safe it 
will carry me across the stream. But 
what a lot of thought and time it will take 
to build it ! The time that I might have 
spent upon pleasure, I must give to work. 
The mind which I might have filled with 
'* pleasant pictures " must conjure up the 
useful and difficult. " He that loseth his 
life shall find it." That is the only princi- 



SACRIFICE AND CHARACTER 37 

pie of work, of life, for the man that would 
accomplish ; and what you see of pros- 
perity and growth has been won by 
struggle and sacrifice,— the sacrifice of 
time and thought and work. What you 
have learned has been given you through 
sacrifice, perhaps — the sacrifice of a par- 
ent's comfort, the self-denial of a mother 
or father. What you know has come to 
you through sacrifice. ** He that loseth 
his life shall find it." 

Now deeper than work is motive. 
Deeper than act is purpose. Deeper than 
word is character, and in this realm pre- 
eminently does Jesus come to give us life. 
No matter what we achieve of worldly 
success, the test of all is character — what 
we m^e — and here we grasp the fuller 
meaning of these words of Jesus, because 
here we find the secret of life. '* He that 
loseth his life for My sake shall find it." 
" For My sake," — this is the spiritual factor 
that He introduces into what would other- 
wise be a simple fact of our natural experi- 
ence. ''For My sake," — motive, in- 
centive, purpose. Here the law is 



38 CHARiy:TER 

translated into life, for here our truer 
instincts rise up to meet the Master. " For 
My sake 1 " It means the answering of 
heart to heart and the touch of a hand 
which brings strength and power. '' For 
My sake ! " It means love answering to 
love, and love means life. The world of 
life is in the sphere of the affections. 
** For My sake." It is sacrifice through 
love — ** He that loseth his Viie/or My sake 
shall find it." Why ? Because here we 
have struggle and sacrifice redeemed 
from the commonplace and made noble. 
Here we see ourselves perfect in Him as 
He displays Humanity to itself. Here we 
have a Godlike meaning in the sacrifice 
which shows a moral purpose and a 
spiritual end, — the end of a perfect charac- 
ter won through struggle and achieved by 
grace. " He that loseth his life for My 
sake shall find it." 

It is no gloomy message of a gloomy 
life that I would bring you to-day, as you 
start out upon a new period of your work. 
My heart goes out to you with all prayers 
and wishes, for a bright future life. A 



SACRIFICE AND CHARACTER 39 

religious life, a life lived near to the won- 
derful life of Jesus Christ cannot be 
gloomy. It must bubble over with a 
sense of joy and delight in living. But it 
seeks practically to meet the practical 
issues of life, and sacrifice in some form or 
other will sum them up. The thought of 
others first, the generosity which sees the 
needs of others, the penetration that seizes 
hold of the moralities and spiritualities of 
life as the highest and worthiest, that has 
before it the domain of character as the 
most important and the best, — this spirit 
it is which incarnates itself in the law of 
sacrifice and recognizes its sway in the 
natural and also in the spiritual world. 

" He that loseth his life for My sake 
shall find it." That is the word which I 
would give you as the secret of happiness 
and the redemption of life. That un- 
selfishness which lives for life and not for 
the baser environment of it, — this it is 
which turns the common prose of work into 
the poetry of a fight for the enthronement 
of the noble and the good, — that motive 
which has in mind not the quantity of the 



40 CHARACTER 

work, but the quality ; not the outward 
appearance of it but the intrinsic worth. 
There is only one way to do it. ''He that 
loseth his life for My sake shall find it." 

If these few words of mine shall leave 
that thought with you, it is enough. For 
then you will look for the ideal, then you 
will seek to live up to it, then you will 
always turn to Jesus as the arbiter of life, 
then you will look to Him as the standard 
of worth. He is the inspiration of life be- 
cause He is life itself. I speak not in cant. 
God deliver us all from that ! But I speak 
as a man to men, — knowing the hardship 
of the moral and spiritual struggle with 
self, — but knowing also the love of the 
Master and the inspiration of His presence. 
To know Him is life eternal. Look to the 
moral issues of life first, and the man will 
live. ** For he that loseth his life for My 
sake shall find it." Be not led away with 
the glitter and the worthlessness of the sur- 
roundings, but through sacrifice and 
struggle achieve the character and gain 
the life. 



CHAPTER III 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE MAN 



CHAPTER III 

THE EVOLUTION OF THE MAN 

" Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, 
and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places 
thereof, if ye can find a man." — Jeremiah j : i. 

It is a wonderful thing to live. To be 
a part of this teeming life of ours ; to enter 
into its joys, its sorrows, its triumphs ; to 
solve its problems and fulfil its destiny, 
that were a task worthy of the noblest and 
best. This is what the prophet thinks, 
off there in Jerusalem, as he casts his eye 
upon the civilization of his own day and 
generation. The people were corrupt. 
The prophet was a reformer. He saw be- 
fore him the wisdom of a people devoted 
to Jehovah ; he grasped the meaning of life, 
and saw the endless possibilities of right 
and truth. 

Thus with his mantle rent and his brow 
overcast, he calls upon his countrymen to 
rise to the occasion, to throw away their 



44 CHARACTER 

Godless civilization, their sensuality, their 
dishonesty, their irreligion. He calls upon 
them to right themselves with Jehovah, 
their God, to take upon themselves the 
responsibilities of their citizenship, to seize 
the opportunities for an eternal destiny for 
Jerusalem, — responsibilities which they 
abhor, and opportunities which they laugh 
at. ** Run ye," he says to them, " through 
the streets of Jerusalem and see now and 
know, and seek in the broad places thereof, 
if ye can find a man." 

Where shall we look for him ? The 
prophet will tell us. To find a man he 
says, '* Ye must run through the streets of 
Jerusalem," i. e., the search must be made 
in the line of progress. If we have no 
sympathy with the times in which we live, 
we cannot hope to be men. The " good 
old times " are a myth so far as we are 
concerned. Our present opportunity is 
our best time, and a lazy and morbid 
sentimentality that regrets the leisure of 
past ages or the inactivity of bygone 
days is not manly. It cannot be. We 
shall never find the man by delving into 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE MAN 45 

the civilizations of the past, but by looking 
into the present, by identifying our work, 
our labor, our investigation, with the run- 
ning life of to-day, with the progress, the 
improvement of the world. 

This is why the ideal set up by Jesus has 
a perennial freshness about it, and always 
renews itself. Its root is placed in a hu- 
manity which sprang from the Divine, and 
thus as the years go by, as the world with 
clearer eye looks at its ideal, that ideal 
grows because it answers to the growing 
necessities of a progressive life, and a man 
always sees in it an answer to his highest 
needs. 

Yes, the privilege of living in these 
times is large. To behold the material 
progress of the world is a sight worth 
seeing. To have a part in it is our priv- 
ilege. When we think of the advance in 
the comfort of living ; when we look at 
the telegraph and the telephone, the Mar- 
coni system, the huge bridge spanning the 
mighty cataract, the railway threading the 
intricacies of defile and mountain, the se- 
crets of medicine and surgery unveiled; 



46 CHARACTER 

when we consider the economic bearing of 
them all upon our every-day life, we realize 
that the world has a destiny, and that 
man will be found where there is the larg- 
est opportunity for development, where 
progress goes. Man with his iron will 
stands at the head, towering above material 
improvements, as the great snow-capped 
mountain stands up above his fellows. 
Strength is there, and man is in the van. 

But the prophet did not confine himself 
to this. He saw further. Progress of 
itself, strength, might simply mean an 
added opportunity for a meaner life. A 
clever villain is more to be feared than an 
ignorant one, for knowledge may give 
greater opportunity for evil as well as for 
good. The prophet saves us from the un- 
real and the hazy and the indefinite, when 
in pursuing the ideal, he does not go oH 
to the heights of Horeb to seek the man, 
but he directs our gaze to the common- 
place of daily life. '* Run ye to and fro 
through the streets of Jerusalem." Don't 
go off to a foreign land to search for this 
ideal ! Look into the faces of your fellow 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE MAN 47 

men. In dreamland you will not find it. 
In the hard practical lines of common life 
you must hear the bugle of nobility and 
mark the lock-step of the armies' advance. 
It is true that the streets of Jerusalem are 
far from attractive. They are sun-beaten 
and weather-worn, perhaps dirty, and the 
jostling of life is there, and crowds annoy, 
and the children are in the way, and prog- 
ress is hindered, but you must find the 
man there ; — not off in the quiet garden of 
the sylvan retreat. In the streets of a 
common humanity the search must be 
made. A man, God's noblest creature, 
must be sought for where man's nature is. 
An angel will not fill his place. Cherubim 
and Seraphim will not answer the call for 
a man. He stands forth upon the earth 
as the creature God made him — flesh and 
blood, with a mind capable of knowing the 
truest and the best, with a heart responsive 
to the noblest and largest aspirations, with 
a will which may cooperate with the 
Divine. 

The ** running," progress, strength, does 
not cover the whole field for our investiga- 



48 CHARACTER 

tion. The " streets of Jerusalem " are the 
places that must be searched, too. The 
man must be found where humanity is. 
The instincts, desires and cravings of hu- 
manity must be there. Nothing human 
must be alien to him. Everything human 
must have a response in his consciousness. 
The cross-currents must be familiar to him, 
but the depths and the mighty tides must 
be known also. Strength is not enough. 
Heart, feeling, must be there also. 

In the activities of life, in the common 
experiences of humanity, then, we must 
look for the man. And yet if we w^ould 
find him at his best, we must search for 
him in the broad places thereof. *' Run ye 
to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, 
and see now, and know, and seek in the 
broad places thereof, if ye can find a man." 

We may be active in life, we may have 
our work, we may feel and know the bur- 
dens of life, its joys, its sorrows ; but un- 
less we live in the broad places, we can 
never be men. 

The largest work will cramp without 
heart. The biggest heart will harm with- 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE MAN 49 

out work. Breadth is the ** salt with sa- 
vor" of both. To be able with clear mind 
to discern the purpose of life, to know that 
this little drama is but the first act of an 
eternal play where the plot will uncover 
itself and the Author will reveal the plan, — 
that means breadth. A ** little " man is a 
monstrosity when we come into the moral 
and spiritual sphere. To be just and fair 
in our estimate of things because of the 
breadth of our vision, because we have 
looked squarely, is the mark of a man. 
As the Psalmist sang of old, *' God hath set 
my feet in a large room." He gave me 
my reason that I might walk uprightly in 
the broad places of opportunity. These 
problems of our citizenship, of civil govern- 
ment, of Christian socialism, of the restric- 
tion of private and corporate wealth, of in- 
ternational relations, of the poor, of educa- 
tion, of the application of principles 
mechanical and psychological for the 
greatest good of the greatest number, for 
the brotherhood, — to solve them as we 
shall be called upon to do, — means a death- 
blow to selfishness, and a searching in the 



50 CHARACTER 

broad places of humanity's possibilities. 
Activity and feeling are only reconciled in 
breadth, and humanitarianism is the bal- 
ance-wheel of life. 

And I mean a breadth that has to do 
with the inner history as well as with the 
outward conduct. To solve the world's 
problems is not so high a thing as to 
wrestle with one's own soul, and find the 
true answer to the deeper cravings of our 
nature. To find the man in ourselves is 
the problem of life, after all. "All the 
universe we have is the universe we have 
within." 

To take the marble and chisel away at 
it, and smooth the edges, and make the 
curves until the statue stands out in all its 
beauty, that is the work of life. We may 
construct the twenty-five-story building, 
we may set up our bridges and our rail- 
ways and our engines, we may discover 
and analyze, and do a great work in the 
world and benefit mankind economically 
and morally, but to have run through the 
streets of the world's Jerusalem, — our na- 
ture, our experience, — to have seen and 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE MAN 5 1 

known and to have sought in the broad 
places thereof and to have found the man, 
— to have been, to be, here in oneself to 
have found him, that is the purpose of life, 
that is the fact which alone gives meaning 
to all the rest. The evolution of the man 
in us is the only true progress, the only 
true humanity, the only true breadth, for 
this progress, this humanity, this breadth 
mean character, and character alone is 
eternal. 

Surely, I do not need to tell you that only 
in the Christ do we find it, that of all the 
characters of the ages He stands forth as 
the ideal man. I do not need to tell you 
that in Him we find the true progress 
which answers to our largest growth, for in 
Him we find a success in the realms of the 
spiritual and the eternal. ** And Jesus in- 
creased in wisdom and in stature, and in 
favor with God and man." If that be not 
the greatest success in life, where shall we 
find it ? That was the motive of all His 
work — to give us an ideal, an example, to 
make us see the good in others, to believe 
in it in ourselves, to sympathize, to help, 



52 CHARACTER 

to minister God, to make life happier and 
nobler, to be the Son of Man among the 
Sons of Men. 

Advance in all those Godlike virtues, 
advance toward God, that is true progress. 
That is the progress which marks the man. 
If when the Christ walked in His beloved 
city, the prophet had proclaimed his word 
** Run ye to and fro through the streets of 
Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek 
in the broad places thereof, if ye can find 
a man," I suppose that few would have 
thought of Jesus, but that was because 
their eyes were blinded and they did not 
have the moral perception, discernment, to 
know the Man when they saw Him. It is 
different with us, and we know that our 
biggest progress is our growth in Him. 

In Him we see humanity at its best. 
We see it, too, in its helplessness and 
weakness, but not with its sin. We see it 
in the courtesy and politeness of His daily 
life and His patience with trifles ; in His 
genial sympathy and happiness and joy in 
the family circle, at the wedding feast. 
Nothing human is alien to Him, and He 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE MAN 53 

fetches the Divine into the commonplace 
and human nature glows with God. We 
find Him in sorrow at the grave of Lazarus ; 
ministering to the sick we find Him, bring- 
ing His strength and help. We see Him 
hanging upon the Cross, bearing men's 
burdens, in order that life may be laid bare, 
and moral purpose may be seen in it all. 

In Him we find the strong, the cour- 
ageous, the noble facing the world. 

Indeed, we find in Him, not only 
progress and humanity, but also breadth. 
He did not seek, like a modern spurious 
Christianity, to turn all men out upon the 
same model, but He became our example 
in order that we might have freedom to 
develop according to our original capacity. 
He did not give a set of rules for the 
slavery of life. But He laid down large 
principles for the sons of men that life 
might be broad, and varied, and compre- 
hensive, that we might work out our 
destiny. He was not narrowed in His 
humanity, even though He was born a 
Jew. His loving heart embraced all, and 
He belongs to the world. He called forth 



54 CHARACTER 

the man in men ; He would call it out in 
us. '* Run ye to and fro through the 
streets of Jerusalem and see now, and 
know, and seek in the broad places 
thereof, if ye can find a man." 

The evolution of the Christian man is 
the problem before you. Be determined, 
be strong-. Do not let your life slip by 
without doing something in the world. 
It may not be much, but it will have to 
do with those near you and around you. 
It will concern them. 

Be sympathetic and loving. Find good 
in the world and in men. Help the good 
along : " Inasmuch as ye have done it 
unto one of the least of these My brethren, 
ye have done it unto Me." See beyond 
the task of life the vision of an eternal 
glory. Follow that. Let it redeem the 
commonplace, and make it divine. 

Be men of breadth. Prejudice melts 
in the warm glow of knowledge. Run 
not away from the battle of life, but, like 
brave men and true, face the enemy and 
fight until death. The fight is for char- 
acter. That alone lasts. Success and 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE MAN 55 

triumph and failure and loss and hard- 
ship and comfort in this world ** fade away 
and are gone." Character is eternal. 
Yea, through life forget it not. ** Run ye 
to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, 
and see now, and know, and seek in the 
broad places thereof, if ye can find a 
man.'' 



CHAPTER IV 

MORAL WORTH AND SPIRITUAL 
CHARACTER 



CHAPTER IV 

MORAL WORTH AND SPIRITUAL 
CHARACTER 

«« And Solomon awoke j and, behold, it was a dream." — 
/ Kings 3 : 15. 

In these times we have come to know 
many things that the people who lived 
long ago did not have any thought of, 
and yet as we look toward that vast 
horizon which stretches far beyond us, we 
still feel that our knowledge is but a bit 
of the great domain whose boundaries are 
not yet in view. The mountain of knowl- 
edge, as the great Rigi of the Alps, stands 
looming up before us, and we wonder 
when the traveller will ever gain its 
summit. The discoveries of science have 
been many, the investigations of the 
human mind have been numerous, but 
even now before the truth-seeker there 
rolls that unknown ocean, where the tides 
are deeper and stronger, and the winds 



6o CHARACTER 

blow fuller and mightier, where man 
cannot venture with safety. 

And a wonderful Providence guides man 
in his history. All the discoveries in the 
physical world, all the inventions which 
in this last century have become a part 
of our every-day life, — the telephone, the 
telegraph, the X-ray, the harnessing of 
the powers of nature to the carriage of 
man, — these have been dependent upon 
the moral and spiritual advancement of 
the peoples of the earth. Suppose gun- 
powder had been known to Nero, or 
electricity to Caligula ! Only as man 
has grown in morals, only as communities 
have been " able to bear it," to use them 
aright, have these discoveries and inven- 
tions been placed in our hands. The 
moral progress of mankind has been the 
key which has unlocked the door of 
nature's wonderful laboratory and ad- 
mitted us to her marvelous secrets. 
Progress in the moral and spiritual is 
the condition of advance in the physical. 
If man were perfect it would seem reason- 
able, from our point of view, to expect 



MORAL WORTH 6l 

that all the forces of nature would be 
under his control. If man were in har- 
mony with the law of God, and rose to a 
full sense of sonship, the mysterious 
dreams of life would become the wide- 
awake experiences of the noblest man- 
hood. Those visions of the soul which 
open to the pure in hearty those ideals 
which lift the life of drudgery to the level 
of sanctity, 

*' Those obstinate questionings 
Of sense and outward things, 



Those first affections, 

Which, be they what they may, 

Are yet the fountain light of all our day," 

these, — the dreams of youth, the hopes of 
childhood, the enthusiasms of the spring of 
life, — the ideals of life — are the things that 
live on, the things that remain when the 
outer trappings of life are long since moth- 
eaten. 

** And Solomon awoke, and behold, it 
was a dream." 



62 CHARACTER 

In the freshness of youth, the prince had 
become the king. He had, as it were, just 
graduated from college, and entered upon 
his more special work. His task was 
before him. He had come to the turning 
point when he could be no longer the 
boy without thought and without respon- 
sibility. He mounted the throne of Is- 
rael when the times demanded men, and 
thoughtful men at that. He had been a 
very bright lad, and his father, old King 
David, had encouraged him in his studies. 
He had the best training. His mind was 
stored with vast and varied information. 
He was alert, and shrewd, and penetrat- 
ing. He was unwearying in his pursuit of 
knowledge. Nature and man, botany and 
zoology he had studied. He wrote many 
songs and proverbs. He became an ex- 
pert in geometry, astronomy, and medi- 
cine, ** wiser than all men," his biog- 
rapher tells us. And we see him here 
in the brightness of his youth, his heart 
untainted, his mind pure. Away into the 
unknown still stretch the fields of knowl- 
edge, away into the illimitable runs the 



MORAL WORTH 63 

path which shall lead to satisfaction. His 
life is before him. 

He does not forget his religious duties. 
He goes to Gibeon to sacrifice there. 
That was a great high place. And while 
there, he has a dream. We have not 
solved this mystery of the dream. Here 
is a subject upon which the psychologist 
may, perhaps, some day cast light. Is the 
dream life altogether apart from the wak- 
ing life ? What is the connection ? In a 
dream the action of the ordinary faculties 
is suspended by natural causes, we say. 
In a dream we are in unconscious relation 
to things about us. But what of that 
mind which never rests even in sleep, what 
of that interior, spiritual world which glows 
more brightly when the mind is thrown 
in upon itself, and the outward fades 
away ? What of that inner vision of faith ? 
What of that innermost citadel of person- 
ality, — the seat of conscience and reason 
and will ? Surely that is one of the facts 
of life to be taken into account as much as 
the other facts of life. 

In this inner experience where the 



64 CHARACTER 

Divine and the human meet, in this 
dream, as it is called, there came to Solo- 
mon — as there may come to each one of 
us — the ideal of life. God speaks, and 
recognizes the nobility of man, for He 
gives him his choice. God will not rob 
man of his freedom, for that would rob 
him of his manhood. It is a critical time. 
Solomon must make his choice. He must 
set up his ideal. He must choose his path. 
"Ask what I shall give thee," says the 
Divine voice to him. *' Which way will 
you go, to the right hand or to the left ? " 
Solomon was now king, and yet he 
answers, ** I am a little child, I know not 
how to go out or to come in." The future 
was unknown. It made him afraid. 
*' Give thy servant," he says, '* an under- 
standing heart that I may discern between 
good and bad." There is his ideal. 
There is his choice. It is the ideal of his 
dream. He sets it up in that mysterious 
region of his inner personality where God 
speaks, and where the Divine and human 
meet. 

We are apt to look upon this scene of 



MORAL WORTH 65 

the Bible story as something entirely apart 
from ordinary experience, but it is nothing 
of the sort. God speaks to you and to me 
in the citadel of our personality, just as He 
spoke to Solomon, hundreds of years ago. 
God allows us to have our ideals, to 
choose them, to set them up. God gives 
us our visions and our dreams, just as He 
gave them to the fathers. Solomon's ideal 
was ** moral worth." 

" And Solomon awoke ; and, behold, it 
was a dream." Yes, he awoke to every- 
day experience. He was king. He had all 
the intellectual and material resources of 
the kingdom at his command. He awoke. 
He stirred around among men. He found 
that there were many things in life that 
made against his ideal. Moral worth ! 
Men were not, he found, as his youthful 
innocence had pictured them. He saw the 
vice and crime of the world about him. 
He learned the weakness of his own heart. 
He saw the deceits of the world. He felt 
that lower nature stirring within him — that 
desire for the gratifications of the world, of 
pride and of lust. He saw back of " ap- 



66 CHARACTER 

pearance " and beheld, in the main, *' rot- 
tenness." Men said to him : ** Your ideal 
is too high. Moral worth ! You are im- 
practical. Your ideal is a dream. Why 
not take life as we take it, and enjoy your- 
self ? Why have too strict a sense of purity 
and integrity ? The men who have that are 
few and far between. Why live in the at- 
mosphere of a dream on the level of the 
ideal and miss the experiences of life ? Be 
as other people." And Solomon listened. 
Oh ! what about the choice at Gibeon ! 
** But that was a dream, and now I am 
awake ! The realities of life stare me in 
the face." Oh ! what about the ideal of 
the understanding heart ! " That was a 
dream, and now I am awake. These ex- 
periences are real. The ideal was the 
dream." Yes, the actual experiences of 
life had shattered the high hopes and no- 
ble ambitions and youthful enthusiasms. 
He was awake, awake to the life about 
him — the life of the vulgar and the low, 
and the degrading. He was awake to 
lust and all those debasing customs and 
habits of his day. He went through them 



MORAL WORTH 67 

all. He had his fill of them. He tested 
life on its worldly side. He ran the gaunt- 
let of it. For years he gave up "moral 
worth " as too lofty an ideal to be at- 
tained. It was but a dream, and he was 
awake to the real things of life! Yes, 
awake ! but in his old age, he writes over 
this chapter of his history, - " Vanity of 
vanities, all is vanity." 

**And Solomon awoke, and, behold, it 
was a dream." Experience is the best 
teacher, we say, and Solomon lived long 
enough to correct his opinion of the real 
things of life. He made the mistake of 
thinking the dream an illusion. He learned 
that the ideal of the dream and the " moral 
worth " of the choice were not the imagi- 
nations he thought them. The circumstan- 
ces of life, the pains and pleasures and joys 
and delights are not life itself. He forgot 
that the dream at Gibeon was a part of his 
actual experience, — as much a fact of his 
experience as the waking. The ideal of 
his youth he thought but a dream, and yet 
that ideal, that choice, that far-seeing vision 
of the true and lofty was the abiding ex- 



68 CHARACTER 

pression of the supreme value of moral 
worth, — the value of character, the only 
thing lasting, the only thing permanent, 
the only thing that expands and grows 
and deepens to eternity. Hear the old 
man, as in the decline of his years he sums 
up life's meaning. No one ever had a 
fuller experience of the world than he had. 
Hear him as he gives the story of his 
worldly experience : — " Let us hear the 
conclusion of the whole matter : Fear 
God and keep His commandments, for 
this is the whole duty of man." The 
dream after all, was real. The ideal is 
the real, and " moral worth " is the true 
goal of life. What seems to be real, — 
riches, power, gratification of selfish am- 
bition, place, idle pleasure, — is an illusion. 
Solomon found that "moral worth" was 
the only abiding possession, and moral 
worth is character. 

My heart goes with you all to-day as you 
stand upon the shore of the unknown sea, 
and hoist the sail which shall carry your 
bark out upon life's larger experiences. 
Fain w^ould I inscribe upon that vessel the 



MORAL WORTH 69 

word ** character." This it is which alone 
can keep things safe, and ensure your 
reaching the haven where you would be. 
The essence of all worth is character. 
Technical knowledge such as you have 
rightly acquired is well enough. But the 
dynamic of existence is character, — that 
which Solomon found out after a long and 
devious course. 

If there be one thing for which Jesus is 
supreme, it is character, and we look to 
Him as our example. All His words and 
works have to do with that inner man of 
the heart, character, and therefore they 
live. To the knowledge of truth in the ab- 
stract. He adds little. You can find most 
of His sayings in the pages of a Confucius, 
a Zoroaster and a Buddha. What Jesus 
did was to translate truth into life. In 
Him the ideal and the actual kissed each 
other. Technical knowledge — your formu- 
las and your equations — is good enough 
in its way. It may be necessary in min- 
istering to the advance of civilization and 
to the comfort and safety of the world. 
But the intellect alone is a dangerous 



70 CHARACTER 

guide, and the rectification of the intellect 
must come through the building up of the 
spiritual man. What will save your head 
from becoming hard and your career from 
becoming calculating and cold and rest- 
lessly brainy is character, — the cultivation 
of the deeper and nobler instincts of our 
nature. The man of the future is the man 
of broad sympathies and tender feeling 
along with mighty intellect. " To feel " 
is the twin sister of '* To know " in a noble 
personality. 

I think that one danger of our educa- 
tional system to-day is that the teacher 
is on the road to become a ''machine" 
and the pupil is " examined " to death. 
*' Marks " hold too big a place in the sys- 
tem. Education means a " drawing out " 
of spiritual character, and personality must 
be brought to the fore. The moment we 
divorce spiritual education from technical 
training, the whole thing is a humbug. 
Scientific observation of nature is not 
enough to redeem the world. •* Phe- 
nomena by themselves are not educative." 
Moral worth and spiritual culture condition 



MORAL WORTH 71 

the development of life. We need to re- 
deem the Personal in education. That 
divinity within us, that '' vision and faculty 
divine " which is the fountain-light of all 
our day, must be enlarged. A low tone of 
moral worth and spiritual character in a 
man vitiates all his work. If a man does 
not live " good," he cannot 'think " good." 
The letting free of the image of God in 
us, — not the apotheosis of routine and 
method and fads and text-books, — this is 
the educative life, this is life's redemption. 

Cherish the ideal. Aim at spiritual char- 
acter. 

Be true. Let there be no false ring about 
you. In the moral and spiritual sphere 
don't be a trickster. Unless a man be true 
himself, his pursuit of truth will avail noth- 
ing. Don't be the slave of your profession, 
but give the spiritual nature a chance and 
live out in the open of character. 

Be reverent. Handle the facts of your 
calling with some sense of the Divine 
power in the world. A man who has no 
reverence can have no God. When a man 
has lost all awe of God, he has become a 



72 CHARACTER 

machine. When a man has no high ideal 
of what he may become, he has no future. 
Don't be too ** cock-sure." " After me, the 
deluge" comes not recommended by the 
life of its author. Wise men have lived 
before us, and many will come after us. 
We do not know it all. 

Let us make simplicity, not the emphasis 
of our life, but the rhythm. We men of the 
future must not strain at effects. We must 
be as *' a little child " if we would enter the 
kingdom of character which is the King- 
dom of Jesus. I have read somewhere 
that in the Academy of Fine Arts in Flor- 
ence there stands that wonderful creation 
of Michelangelo, his " David." From 1504 
until 1882 this famous statue stood beside 
the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio. Just 
after it had been placed upon its pedestal, 
a pompous Florentine official came to see 
it, and after deigning to express great 
satisfaction in the work, suggested that 
the nose appeared to him too large. Hear- 
ing this, Michelangelo gravely mounted a 
ladder and pretended to work at the face 
for a few moments, dropping meantime 



MORAL WORTH 73 

some marble dust which he had in his 
pocket. At last (having really made no 
change) he turned with a questioning 
glance to his critic who responded, " Bravo ! 
Bravo ! you have given it life ! " The 
ideal of character is before us in the Divine 
and human image of the Father. We 
may be quite sure that we cannot improve 
upon this wonderful conception of the 
heavenly artist. To attempt to change 
the features is but to make fools of our- 
selves. We will not do that but in rever- 
ence of spirit and in truth admire and 
humbly strive to copy. 

Solomon wrote many proverbs, he was 
the wealthiest man of his day, his fame 
went abroad into all lands ; but his glory is 
not that he had this or that he possessed 
that, — his glory is that as a little child he 
asked God for an understanding heart to 
discern good and evil, that he cherished a 
spiritual ideal. His shame is compassed 
when that spiritual ideal is forgotten. A 
dream ? No, but the perfection of life. 



CHAPTER V 
SERVICE AND CHARACTER 



CHAPTER V 

SERVICE AND CHARACTER 

" Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your 
servant." — St. Matthew 20 : 26. 

A SHIP must have a rudder, if it will 
reach the haven where it would be, and a 
human life must have a guiding principle 
if it would achieve anything of value. It 
is always with this thought in mind that 
Jesus teaches His disciples. " Of such is 
the kingdom of Heaven," He said on the 
day when He took the little child in His 
arms, laid His hands upon him and blessed 
him, and here He sets forth an axiom of 
life. The disciples must be taught this 
truth, time and time again, before they un- 
derstand. The mother of James and John 
comes with her request that these her sons 
may sit one on the right hand and the 
other on the left in the kingdom, and again 
He must assert the law of that kingdom. 



78 CHARACTER 

"Whosoever will be chief among you, let 
him be your servant." 

It is the principle which underlies moral 
worth and gives it direction. Tested by 
experience, it is the crest of the mountain 
peak where glow the golden rays of the 
sun. It is the means whereby the moun- 
tain top is reached, the energy by which 
the patient climber toils on. It is the re- 
ward of life. It is life itself. '* Service," 
— it is of that I would speak to you. 

For all life is a service. Now that you 
are free from the routine of the class room, 
you feel that sense of exhilaration and joy 
(I felt it myself) which comes from the 
vista of a larger life. It is right that it 
should be so, for our anticipations are a 
great part of our happiness, and sad will 
it be for the world w^hen we do not send 
forth from our schools and colleges hearts 
kindled with enthusiasms for doing and 
daring. 

But all life is a service. The question 
is, Of what sort shall it be ? This is a great 
truth laid down by Jesus which the world 
is just beginning to take in. "The public 



SERVICE AND CHARACTER 79 

service corporation," — such a name as that 
would not have been thought of a quarter 
of a century ago. Indeed, service is the 
basis of all the useful arts. The bridge, 
— does it bear the strain ? does it serve ? 
The man, — does he bear the test ? does he 
fill the position ? does he serve ? 

Yes, life is a service all the way through. 
We can't get away from that. And what 
this old world needs is a singing and 
shouting in work as well as in play. 

There is a difference between service 
and slavery. It lies in the accompani- 
ment. The dead march is not in order 
when the summer is opening, and the 
birds are singing, and the light steps of 
youth yearn for a larger life. That con- 
cept of religion as throwing a damper on 
the happy heart and the bounding step 
is not the concept of Jesus. Christianity 
is a song. It is a shout of triumph. It 
is a life-giving force when things go 
wrong with us. It is a service which is 
perfect freedom. 

The perfect man can understand his 
fellow man, — his cravings, his ambitions, 



8o CHARACTER 

and Jesus recognizes the desire to be 
chief. The longing to excel should be 
in every heart. The man without am- 
bition in his work, in his service, is a 
pretty poor specimen. Jesus recognizes 
ambition and gives it its right place, — 
not the desire to ** lord " it over others, 
but the desire to be chief in service, — 
the desire to excel there. The man in 
the class who is most popular is probably 
not the man who knows most, who has 
made a grind of his course, but the man 
who has served, who has given of his 
cheer, and interest, and sympathy, and 
with a song in his heart has gone along 
the way. The cynical old fellow who 
has lived his life has no right to crush 
ambition and throw cold water upon 
youth and hope and joy. Christianity, 
although a religion of the Cross, is a re- 
ligion of the Cross triumphant. 

I. "Whosoever will be chief among 
you, let him be your servant." The 
right to be chief depends upon the power 
to serve, and first we notice that the 
creative power is the ministering power. 



SERVICE AND CHARACTER 8l 

The universe is built upon that fact. 
This law is dependent upon that. This 
atom is consistent with that. This com- 
bination runs in parallel lines with that. 
Stress and strain and light and heat 
and all the forces are interrelated. There 
is no independence in the material world. 
It is a consistent whole, — one law minister- 
ing to another, one thing serving another, 
— a huge public service. 

Through man's agency, energy may 
be transformed. It cannot be created. 
The amount of matter and of energy in 
the world is ever the same. This is a 
theological as well as a scientific axiom. 
There is more sublime poetry in that first 
chapter of Genesis than we are wont to 
think. The great theory of evolution is 
there. The writer carefully distinguishes 
between the absolute creative act and the 
evolution of matter and mind according 
to their own impressed laws. In this 
latter connection only, can we speak of 
man's creative capacity, — the ability to 
transfer one sort of energy into another, 
to change the form of atom and molecule 



82 CHARACTER 

and manifestation. In this sense, every 
man is a source or fount, a force, a centre 
of life, and every college at every com- 
mencement should flash forth from its own 
glow new suns which should be centres 
of energy and light to new worlds. The 
worth of the system of which each man 
is the centre depends on whether that 
creative power of his shall be a ministering 
power, whether the mind shall have a 
moral purpose in its work, whether, like the 
universe in which we live, the function of 
our life shall be to minister. 

Thus we must have a work. The man 
who lives merely for pleasure is a drag 
upon the wheels of life. To act upon 
some philosophy of life means to have a 
faith, but experience must translate the 
potential into the kinetic. In other words, 
every man in his moral and spiritual life 
" must do the work of a Columbus, 
and discover God afresh," and the cre- 
ative power, the Godlike in us, the 
genius in us consists in our ministering 
capacity : — our work to bear the test of 
reality and truth ; our character to radi- 



SERVICE AND CHARACTER 83 

ate a cheer, a help to men, to brighten, to 
serve. 

2. ''Whosoever will be chief among 
you, let him be your servant." The right 
to be chief, depends upon the capacity to 
serve, and next we notice that the sacrific- 
ing power is the ministering power. This 
law is written large in the material and 
moral universe. The atom gives itself up 
to various combinations, sinking itself. 
The sun sacrifices its own light and heat 
in order that it may minister to a world. 
The animal gives its own life in order to 
protect its offspring. The parents give up 
their own comfort to rear their children. 
The muscle of the athlete is hardened by the 
giving up of itself in exercise, and victory 
in the football field is gained only by care- 
ful training, a sacrifice of many things 
which are pleasant. And yet in this 
giving up and from it, there comes a 
higher and nobler satisfaction which we 
would not surrender. I undertake this 
piece of work or that ; I build the railway, 
or the bridge or the arch ; I discover a 
new method of heating or lighting. I 



84 CHARACTER 

have given up my time, my energy, my 
comfort, my ease, and now I know the re- 
ward of my sacrifice and labor. And I 
know the reward not only in the money — 
the material gain that has come to me — 
but chiefly and best in the sphere of mind 
and will, worth all the toil and sacrifice. 
Thus it is with life. Looking for a com- 
pensation in a higher plane of thought and 
conscience, sacrifice becomes heroic, a 
ministering angel which with gentle touch 
cools the fevered brow and brings health 
and happiness. It is this grand principle 
of serving, of ministering, stamped upon 
nature, seen, at its best, in the moral and 
spiritual world, which redeems life and 
carries it to a triumphant issue. Is it any 
wonder then, that when we look at the 
ideal of Jesus accomplished through the 
natural order of sacrifice, we no longer 
marvel at the "injustice" of His atone- 
ment, but cheerfully recognize God's way 
with the world, and loudly acclaim a sac- 
rifice which is heroic. We preach the re- 
ligion of the cross as the most potent 
factor in the world's history because we 



SERVICE AND CHARACTER 85 

know its moral and spiritual bearing and 
see the tremendous uplift and recompense 
that sacrifice brings with it. The sacri- 
ficial power is the ministering power and 
where would there be a chance for heroism 
without something to try the mind and 
heart and will ? It is only by the constant 
dropping of the water that the firm rock is 
worn away. It is only by the wear and 
tear of life that we can be purified from 
the mean, the little, the unheroic spirit. 
There is a greater pleasure than having 
one's own whim, puffing life away like 
the smoke of a cigar. There is a world 
of character, and a man doesn't live until 
he recognizes that as the all important, 
and he does not ** serve" in the highest 
sense until he realizes that here — in this 
higher world of self — the battle is on and 
he must show himself a hero. 

3. ** Whosoever will be chief among 
you, let him be your servant." 

The right to be chief depends upon the 
capacity to serve, and, last of all, the in- 
spiring power is the ministering power. 
What our time needs is inspiration. We 



86 CHARACTER 

have our great ideals of life, and we need 
the power to realize them. What would 
be the beauty of the rose if it were not in- 
spired — in-breathed — with the very breath 
of God ? What would be the worth of the 
great picture if it did not give out a mes- 
sage to the heart? What would be the 
grasp of fellowship, if as hand touched 
hand there were not the thrill of life ? 
What we look for in the young men and 
women coming forth from our colleges 
every year, is inspiration, enthusiasm. 
That means to be wide awake, to corre- 
spond with the life of God's great universe. 
Why are young men sought for the im- 
portant business positions, to-day ? Be- 
cause there is supposed to be the warm 
glow of life in them which often makes up 
for the dull dead postulates of experience 
even if correct. 

I remember one day coming out of 
Trinity Church, Boston, after listening to 
one of the master orations of Phillips 
Brooks. It was a sermon full of the dignity 
and throb of life, a sermon which breathed 
the inspiration to ennoble and enrich, and 



SERVICE AND CHARACTER 87 

I heard a man say to his wife — they were 
walking behind me — " I didn't think much 
of that ! " But the hearts and countenances 
of all around us were kindled with the ra- 
diance of the vision that had been given us. 
Therefore, don't let us be downcast over 
the cynicism of some men which they 
mistake for wisdom, and lose the thrill of 
a great pursuing. There is such a thing 
as the candle going out because it has be- 
come enmeshed in its own tallow. We 
must not only keep our ideals, but also 
hold on to our inspirations. The man who 
is not seeking to be good cannot be an in- 
spiration. The organism or the machine 
which does not fulfil its laws cannot but 
fail. The man who has no faith in the 
dignity of life and of man's manhood can- 
not inspire. What are the books which 
have moved, — inspired men ? Are they 
Voltaire and Ingersoll and Buckle ? You 
must believe in your own capacity to be- 
come Godlike. Back of the work is the 
man. You can't be the boss of a gang of 
working men or the manager of the shop 
or factory without the question of what 



88 CHARACTER 

you are in yourself being the chief concern, 
and upon this will depend the inspiration 
of your life. The capacity to *' serve " de- 
pends upon the power to " be." That is a 
possibility for every one of us. It requires 
not brains or genius, — but moral purpose. 
The inspiring power is the ministering 
power. " Whosoever will be chief among 
you, let him be your servant." 

May every man of you be a great suc- 
cess in life I You will be, if unselfish serv- 
ice be the law with you. Don't begin by 
thinking yourself a genius. The man who 
does that generally ends in becoming a 
fool. But the world needs the moral and 
spiritual power which you can give it. 
Character is always creative because char- 
acter involves service. 

May every man of you be a hero ! We 
look for noble things from you, — not only 
good work, but good men. The world 
needs them. Don't be afraid to take off 
your coat and do the menial work, if 
necessary. That shows a good heart and 
that means most. In the realm of char- 
acter, as in the great universe, there can- 



SERVICE AND CHARACTER 89 

not be service unless there be sacrifice. 
You can't give without giving up. Char- 
acter is always sacrificial because character 
means service. 

May every man of you be an optimist ! 
You can't be a Christian without being 
one. Do not be a grumbler through life. 
There are too many of that sort already. 
You ought to be an inspiration. It takes 
the fire of the furnace to make the raw 
material of value, and a man may be a fire 
of inspiration and cheer among his fellows, 
moulding, fashioning, influencing. Char- 
acter is always inspiring because character 
means service. 



CHAPTER VI 
THE IDEA AND THE IDEAL 



CHAPTER VI 

THE IDEA AND THE IDEAL 

" Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient 
unto the heavenly vision." — Acts 26 : ig. 

No one ever lived a more strenuous life 
than Saul of Tarsus. His energy was 
overmatched by his zeal. Heart and soul 
he gave himself to that work which he 
thought was God's work, persecuting the 
Christians even unto strange cities. He 
was the slave of an idea. 

But one day, as he journeyed toward 
Damascus on his errand of persecution, a 
strange thing happened. There shined a 
light in his heart. A divine search lamp 
was turned in upon his soul. A new mind 
took possession of him. His zeal had been 
a mistaken one. That which had seemed 
against God and God's cause, now, with 
the new light shed upon it, became a glory. 
A vision came to him. He had been living 
in the valley, but now he was living on the 



94 CHARACTER 

mountain top. He could feel the fresh 
breezes of the higher country. He saw a 
glory, a purpose, a motive in life. He 
looked through the outward mechanical 
routine of a formal Judaism and beheld the 
Christ, — the vision aglow with humanity, 
with manhood, with life. There flashed 
in upon him the futility of the compelling 
law, and there came to him a new con- 
sciousness of beauty, moral success, spirit- 
ual blessedness, freedom. This was the 
heavenly vision. His idea had changed 
into an ideal. 

For I conceive that there is a vast dif- 
ference between an idea and an ideal. 

An idea comes to us more or less as a 
mechanical thing. It may not have any 
moving power in it. It may be a thing of 
routine. It is limited in its scope, and 
when the man passes on beyond this 
world, it falls lifeless. It has served its 
purpose. Saul knew all about that. He 
had been the slave of an idea. But on 
the day of the heavenly vision, how 
changed he becomes ! Ever after, the idea 
becomes the ideal and his common daily 



THE IDEA AND THE IDEAL 95 

life is illuminated by it. There is a radi- 
ance, a ring, in his manhood which was 
not his before. 

This is what I mean : — Look at nature ; 
you see cause and effect, one law working 
with another, atom, molecule, — all perfect 
in their adjustment, marvelous in their 
proportion, wonderful in their capacity. 
Nature is a huge machine. There is the 
idea. 

But take your natural world and read 
deeper. Back of the machine, we see the 
mind. Back of the product, we see the 
maker. Back of the sketch, we find the 
artist. Back of the adjustment, we reach 
design. Back of the mechanical appears 
the spiritual, — back of it all, God. Out- 
ward beauty and harmony are but the 
heralds of something inward which dazes 
the imagination and opens up endless pur- 
poses. The statue has come to life. You 
see the difference ? The idea may warm, 
but the ideal thrills. The idea may move, 
but the ideal lifts. The idea may breathe, 
but the ideal lives. 

There is nothing in life apart from its 



96 CHARACTER 

moral and spiritual meaning. The idea is 
not enough. It is scarcely worth while. 
The idea does not regenerate. It takes 
the ideal to do that. The idea does not 
inspire. It takes the ideal to do that. 

Now, if life is to be worth anything, it 
must have an ideal. The heavenly vision 
must be with you and with me all the 
days. Call it morality, call it spirituality, 
name it religion, faith, yes, call it Jesus, 
only let it be there, the regeneration, the 
redemption, the inspiration of our life 1 
If the future means only pleasure and 
work, — no matter if w^e span the ocean 
with our bridges and reach distant planets 
in our journeys, no matter if chemistry 
and electricity take us to heights un- 
dreamed of ; — unless the internal part of 
a man be in evidence, unless the moral 
and spiritual have a chance, w^e differ 
in no wise from the beast that perish- 
eth. 

What does an ideal do ? 

I. It saves us from mediocrity. 

That is a danger of every life, of every 
age. The ideal alone will keep us from 



THE IDEA AND THE IDEAL 97 

it. We must not be disobedient to the 
heavenly vision. In America what a tone 
we are giving to life! Our women play 
bridge, and our men build up colossal 
fortunes, and we go to the theatre now 
and then, and we are not very bad 
and not exactly good, and we sink down 
to a humdrum mediocrity. Indeed, this 
is so not only with common life. Prof. 
Brander Matthews said in an address, two 
years ago, that '* while we have many im- 
portant inventions to our credit, we have 
had no scientific discovery of prime impor- 
tance in point of principle and scope to 
credit to any American within the past 100 
years." 

To be content with the moral standard 
of our own set, to live along its level 
and to be satisfied with its aims, — to ig- 
nore the larger reaches of spiritual leader- 
ship, — this is to settle down into a hum- 
drum mediocrity. No ! the only salvation 
from mediocrity is the ideal which is a 
heavenly vision. An idea will not take its 
place. 

2. And then ideals give us stability. 



98 CHARACTER 

There is only one thing worse than a 
silly woman, and that is a flabby man. 
You expect a man to have a mind of his 
own, to have in himself a certain resisting, 
controlling power. Why is it that busi- 
ness men complain so about the lack of 
persevering worth-while workers in their 
several departments? There is so much 
inefficient work. It is because of the ab- 
sence in the workers of moral and spiritual 
backbone which would give their work 
a permanent fibre. Why is it that the 
articles for house and personal use wear 
out so soon, whereas, years ago, furniture 
and clothing had a more lasting quality — 
were better made ? We have been drawn 
down to an idea, and have not risen to the 
ideal. The ** heavenly vision " alone will 
save us from the unstable. 

It is so with morals. We need less rel- 
ativity — opportunism — in morals. A man 
needs to have a conviction of right and 
truth. He needs to have and to hold that 
conviction whether he be placed among 
the more ignorant or the better informed. 
It is true as the great Butler says — " Our 



THE IDEA AND THE IDEAL 99 

duties arise out of our relations " — but it 
is our duties not our morality. Every- 
one of you men admires the fellow who 
stands up for right and truth even when 
all the rest of the class falls away from the 
standard. The class idea withers before 
the ideal, every time. It is so with Hfe. 
** Every man is worth just so much as the 
things are worth about which he busies 
himself," but on the other 'hand, the things 
we do and say must have the moral per- 
manence in the doing and saying, if 
they are to be worth while. The idea 
will not give us stability. It is only the 
** heavenly vision," the ideal which can do 
that. 

3. And then once again the ideal, '* the 
heavenly vision " gives us a purpose. 
''What makes life dreary," says George 
Eliot, " is want of motive." How true 
that is ! No man could write, " Youth is 
a blunder, manhood a struggle, old age a 
regret " if his life had had a purpose. The 
Chinese philosopher said that the light of 
Heaven cannot shine into an inverted 
bowl. A life without a purpose is that. 



lOO CHARACTER 

It is a ship without a rudder, a bow with- 
out an arrow, a body without a soul. 
When a man enters upon his life-\\ork, 
he begins to reveal his purpose or lack 
of purpose. He goes on revealing it as 
the years go by. Unless there be a moral 
purpose in our life, a spiritual end and 
aim, the life itself will be useless. To be 
the mere mechanical register of pleasures 
and pains physical and mental, merely to 
behold the senseless coins when the bell 
rings and the drawer of life is opened, that 
is not a worthy aim. Rather it is to be 
like the violin, — mellowed out of all the 
hard use of life, giving out a sweeter tone 
as the years go by, answering the more 
nobly as the finger of Providence strikes 
it. The ''heavenly vision," the ideal, 
alone can give us purpose. 

And so I would bring a message of hope, 
in spite of the mediocrity, the instability, 
the purposelessness of the world. 

I know that you will take the ** heavenly 
vision," the ideal, the man, with you 
through your days. Here is life with all 
its grand possibilities, its advantages, its 



THE IDEA AND THE IDEAL lOI 

rewards, its triumphs. The struggle is on 
for you, the battle-cry is heard, the clash 
of contending armies is sounding in your 
ears. " Let not him that putteth on his 
armor, boast himself as he that putteth it 
off." 

You will recall that engagement at Bala 
Klava, where ** rode the six hundred." It 
was a brilliant and daring spectacle. But 
it was not war. Life is war, and the 
*' heavenly vision" will be with us. Don't 
let us be content with an idea. You will 
not win your life with that. 

If the swimmer going from bank to 
bank across the mighty stream, with its 
strong current, would reach a certain point 
on the farther shore, he must aim away 
above where the wheat is growing and the 
flowers are blooming, and the sun is shin- 
ing. He must have the '' heavenly vision." 
If he aim merely at the point he wishes to 
reach, the current will be strong and will 
bear him down below the haven where he 
would be. And I say that every man must 
have that in himself, that ideal, that heav- 
enly vision, which will save him from 



I02 CHARACTER 

mediocrity, give him stability and furnish 
him a purpose. 

Therefore, be strong ! "I have fought 
a good fight." These are the words of 
Paul, who had not been '* disobedient unto 
the heavenly vision," like the stalwart wall 
of rock, against the vices, the meannesses, 
the littlenesses of life. These are the words 
which may be ours when we come to lay 
aside life's burdens. 

Therefore, be men ! '' I have kept the 
faith," i. <?., the faith has kept me. These 
are the words of Paul who had not been 
** disobedient unto the heavenly vision." 
Faith in the ideal has guided me amid the 
world's quicksands. It has purified me in 
the fire of life. It has kept me a man, with 
a man's breadth of view, his big heart and 
his helping hand. 

Therefore, be a success ! *' Henceforth, 
there is laid up for me a crown of righteous- 
ness." These are the words of Paul who 
had not been *' disobedient unto the heav- 
enly vision." All our work at the last may 
be a disappointment, a failure. But there 
shall be no failure in ourselves if we are 



THE IDEA AND THE IDEAL I03 

** not disobedient unto the heavenly vision." 
Faith in the ideal will lead us to a crown 
of righteousness, — to a strength, a man- 
hood, a success, — permanent and abiding. 



CHAPTER VII 
EVERY MAN AT HIS BEST 



CHAPTER VII 

EVERY MAN AT HIS BEST 

" Ye therefore shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is 
perfect."— 6?. Matthew s ■' 48. 

That is a far-reaching result. It sounds 
as if it were beyond human strength. The 
"Sermon on the Mount'"' which is con- 
tained in the fifth to the seventh chapters 
of this Gospel is often thought to be im- 
aginative and not suited to the hustling, 
busy world as we know it. But if we re- 
member that the teaching of these chap- 
ters deals not with concrete cases but with 
figures of speech which set forth principles 
of action ; if we remember that such a say- 
ing as ** whosoever smiteth thee on thy 
right cheek, turn to him the other also " is 
not a literal command but an imagery 
which embodies the spirit of Christian for- 
giveness and kindliness — set forth in an 
instance, ** more striking because con- 
crete," — we shall have no reason to think 



I08 CHARACTER 

that the Sermon on the Mount is not prac- 
tical and practicable. 

Now every man in this world who 
amounts to anything has a creed. He 
may not be able to state it in clear, concise 
language. In fact he may not admit that 
he has it. But if you watch him, you will 
see that at vital moments in his career he 
proceeds to act upon it. Indeed, if you 
merely observe his every-day life at col- 
lege, in the home, among his friends, you 
may easily find out his controlling princi- 
ple, which is his creed. One man's creed 
is gain and another's is selfishness. One 
man's creed is success at any cost and an- 
other's is truth and honor. In other words, 
conduct is the test of creed. We commend 
our creed by our conduct. 

Jesus saw all this when at the beginning 
of His ministry He gave the fundamentals 
of life in this Sermon on the Mount, and 
set forth the principles of His religion. We 
have chosen this sentence, " Ye therefore 
shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is 
perfect," because we think that it sums up 
what should be before a man all his days. 



EVERY MAN AT HIS BEST 109 

To be perfect, — that means to be complete, 
to fill up the measure of one's life, to strive 
after the ideal, to make life a success. To 
be perfect, — that means a complete adjust- 
ment of one's nature and a living up to its 
highest capacities. Our religion should 
not be in the lowlands amid the miasma 
and malaria, but on the mountains of life 
where the atmosphere is crisp and clear 
and bracing. To have the highest ideal, 
to strive after the noblest ; not to be sa,tis- 
fied with the commonplace, with the me- 
diocre, with the average ; not to be con- 
tent with anything short of the greatest : 
"Ye, therefore, shall be perfect as your 
heavenly Father is perfect." 

Perfection ! It is the creed of work. The 
artist who does not strain after the highest 
is a failure. There must be in his mind 
and heart a love for the largest expression 
of his inward impulse. The mechanic w^ho 
does not build his machine of the best ma- 
terials according to the perfection of his 
notion is not a good w^orkman. A man 
may fail from lack of the outward mate- 
rials, but it is criminal for him to be con- 



no CHARACTER 

tented with any product which is not the 
best attainable. You know how it is with 
manners. A true instinctive gentleman 
will always strive to express himself as to 
word and act in a way that is becoming. 
One who makes no effort to conform to the 
highest usage of society will soon degen- 
erate into a boor. 

It is true that the ideal will suffer in the 
expression. We think thoughts for which 
language is inadequate. That is one of 
the difficulties which we have with relig- 
ious experience. To translate it into words 
so that others may share it is a very diffi- 
cult task. And yet one must have some 
creed of expression. He must, if he be 
worth anything, strive after perfection. It 
does not do to be content with anything 
short of the best. I heard, not long ago, 
of a beautiful, new automobile. It was a 
pleasure to look at it. It seemed almost 
full of life, as cog and wheel and chain and 
all the rest worked in harmony. But at 
the very first unevenness of the road down 
it came, with axle broken. It was made 
of cast iron instead of tempered steel I 



EVERY MAN AT HIS BEST III 

Our work will never be right until money- 
ceases to be the test. How much can I 
make out of it? is a degrading creed. 
Rather, Is the building, the survey, the 
railroad, the product, the best expression 
possible of the ideal ? If a man aim at the 
bull's-eye, he may come near it. If he 
shoot at the outer rim of the target, the 
chances are that he will hit far afield. Per- 
fection is the only safe creed for work. 
Human life is a valuable thing, and all the 
appurtenances of life, therefore, should be 
of the best. If the best construction and 
the best material be a " synonym " for our 
work ; if the engine and the dynamo and 
the mine-shaft and the lever and the chem- 
ical product be of the best ; if our work in 
the realm of science or art or manufacture 
or literature or philosophy be always of the 
best — i. e.y according to the ideal, — the bod- 
ies and the souls of men will be safe. For 
the trained actor or sculptor, or mechanic 
or clergyman or electrician to aim below 
perfection is criminal. I do not say that 
all will reach it, but I do say that to be 
content with anything less means degen- 



112 CHARACTER 

eration. Perfection, completeness, the best, 
is the creed for work. 

It is also the creed of social welfare. To 
speak of American politics is to cause the 
foreigner to smile. Too often the equiva- 
lent of politics is corruption. Greed and 
graft are the accepted items of the account. 
We have many problems upon our hands 
here in this Western continent. The edu- 
cation of the youth, the negro suffrage, the 
regulation of corporations, the control of 
labor unions, the trust, the relations of the 
rich and the poor, the assimilation of the 
foreigners who are daily poured out upon 
our shores, — it would take paragraphs to 
set them all before you. Yet we men must 
solve them somehow and somewhere. And 
woe betide us if we do not hold up before 
ourselves the highest and the best ! 

If our Father in heaven be perfect, then 
the social welfare means an organic 
brotherhood. The gang of workmen will 
do everything for one man while they will 
do as little as possible for another. There 
is a tie which -underlies all work. We 
need strong words and deeds in these 



EVERY MAN AT HIS BEST II3 

days. We need the plain truth. If our 
President has done nothing else, he has 
brought to the fore plain speaking and 
plain dealing between man and man. The 
pure spring of brotherhood rises away up 
in the mountains of man's inner nature. 
It flows down and becomes the brook of 
sympathy and kindness, rushing on into 
the river of mutual helpfulness, and finally 
gushes out into the sea of progress, de- 
velopment, and civilization. 

The social welfare demands that per- 
fection be the aim and end. And adjust- 
ment of problems which has not ** the very 
best '^ as the goal is but temporary. The 
best alone is permanent. To contribute to 
this ideal is our privilege. It will depend 
altogether on a right moral direction on 
our part. A realization of the universal 
brotherhood of man will hang on you and 
on me. We come into contact with all 
sorts and kinds of men. *' No man liveth 
unto himself." 

Great changes are coming in the social 
world. We hear the roar of the mighty 
current as it rushes toward us. We must 



114 CHARACTER 

have the very best as our ideal. *' Ye 
therefore shall h^ perfect T 

Do we take in even a part of what this 
means? It means fair play between man 
and man. It means love between man 
and man. The masses of men do not 
want our pity ; they do not want our 
charity ; they do not want our alms. In 
this ideal brotherhood there is to be '' sup- 
port for those who cannot work, but not 
for those who wall not." A chance for 
every one, not only for the few. As a rich 
man, I have no right to hoard my riches, 
but I must use them for the brotherhood. 
As a learned man, I have no right to keep 
my learning to myself ; I must share it. 
As having a gift of deep sympathy, I must 
place it at the service of others. The 
difficulties and distresses of the social life 
will not be wholly settled by international 
law and government inspection. The man 
with the art collection or the beautiful 
garden or the brilliant gifts must share 
them with the brotherhood, — with his 
neighbors who have them not. The man 
with money must become a benefactor to 



EVERY MAN AT HIS BEST II5 

the whole brotherhood. The rich man 
must give up his luxury and wastefulness 
and extravagance, and learn simplicity. 
The poor man must feel no envy or jealousy 
of that in which he has a share. How can 
he ? He will not feel that because the rich 
man realizes that what he himself has is 
not his own, it follows that what the rich 
man has and is, is therefore his. That 
would be theft. The creed of social wel- 
fare is perfection. '* To go on unto it," as 
the apostle says, is to give every man a 
chance, to give him fair play, to take no 
mean advantage of him, to aim at the 
complete adjustment of life, to aim at the 
highest ideal. " Ye therefore shall be per- 
fect." 

It is not only the creed of work and the 
creed of social welfare ; it is also the creed 
of worth. After all the *' personal equa- 
tion " is the measure of our success. 

In symphonies of the best masters, there 
is sometimes a marvelous intricacy. Very 
often the harmony is close, and the melody 
is almost lost in the maze of sound. It 
all seems a huge puzzle and riddle. And 



Il6 CHARACTER 

then, just as we despair of ever appreciat- 
ing the motive of it, there comes out in 
clear tone the melody which makes the 
harmony possible. We can't legislate 
men into the brotherhood. The melody, 
the key-note, the motive is personal with 
you and with me. In the stress and strain 
of the world's business, and in the tension 
of life there is a basic something which we 
call character. The creed of worth is per- 
fection. " Ye therefore shall be perfect." 
Every man at his best. I care not what 
be our failures, I care not what our hard- 
ships and our disappointments ; all I care 
about is that a man have the highest ideal 
for himself in the realm of personal char- 
acter. What we are in the midst of this 
seething struggle ; what we are as we 
go about our daily work, as we teach our 
classes and move among our fellows ; what 
we are as we sit in the class-room or pore 
over the ledger ; what we are as we live 
with wife and family and bear the common 
sorrows and carry the common burdens, — 
what we are is the test. Am I honest, and 
just, and merciful, and generous, and warm- 



EVERY MAN AT HIS BEST II7 

hearted, and helpful, and persevering, 
and pure and good, and devoted to duty, 
and mindful of the spiritual within me, and 
fair to my fellow men and faithful to my 
heavenly Father? — these are the funda- 
mentals of life. These are the essentials 
of character. It is right to be ambitious. 
The world needs a spring and an elasticity 
and a joy and enthusiasm. Only thus 
does the world advance.. But we can't 
have a wholesome character without a 
high ideal. ** God loves us," says an old 
writer, " not as we are but as we are be- 
coming" — /. e.y as we have a right ideal 
and strive toward it. ** Ye therefore shall 
be perfect." We should not be content 
with less than that. 

I believe in man because I believe in 
God. I hope for man because he has a 
spiritual nature. I am confident of man 
because with a right ideal, and with the 
highest ideal, he may attain unto per- 
fection, — he may be complete. He must 
work it out, he must labor and strain and 
serve and struggle and ofttimes fail, but 
if God be God, then he may somehow 



Il8 CHARACTER 

and somewhere be perfect even as his 
heavenly Father is perfect. 

There are just these three words which 
I would leave with you as you go out from 
your Alma Mater to bring to her a more 
splendid glory in the days to come ; work, 
welfare, and worth. This is the creed I 
would give you. I speak from a larger 
experience and I know you will hear 
me. 

Be not a laggard ! work with an ideal 1 
To do one's best is the greatest thing in 
life. Never to allow oneself to settle 
down into idleness and mediocrity is 
salvation. If the general have not a plan 
of campaign, how shall he marshal his 
armies and rout the enemy ? You know 
your profession. You will know it better 
if you start out with a creed in regard to 
it. Never be content to turn out anything 
but the best. Things are so different as 
we come into contact with a world of hard- 
headed facts, and we are in danger of 
lowering our standard as we live along. 
Let perfection be your creed of work, — 
hard to carry out, it is true, very hard of 



EVERY MAN AT HIS BEST II9 

attainment, but well worth the effort. Be 
not high-minded, but learn as you go. 

Then, have a creed of welfare. All 
work has a social as well as an individual 
side. Do something for the cause of 
righteousness when you are with your 
fellows. If you manage the large busi- 
ness, if you but deal with the few, let 
there be some heart in you as well as 
some head. Sympathy and kindness are 
so greatly needed in the world of business. 
The man for whom you work, the man 
who works for you needs encouragement 
and craves the affection which you can 
give. Consideration for the weakness of 
others, helpfulness for the man who is 
down, something besides the making of 
money, a regard for others in the making 
of it, — these are the heart qualities which 
alone will solve your social problem. 
Have a thought for the welfare of others 
as well as for your own. Have an ideal of 
welfare. 

Have a creed of worth. Remember 
that what you are in purity, in honesty, 
in charity, is the main thing. Many men 



I20 CHARACTER 

see all their work wrecked, but a noble 
life is always a success. This is what 
remains with us always, — a good con- 
science, a clean character. The Master 
knew what He was saying when He held 
out " perfection " as the goal. And every 
man may make this the lodestar of life. 



CHAPTER VIII 
VISIONS AND CHARACTER 



CHAPTER VIII 

VISIONS AND CHARACTER 

" Your young men shall see visions." — Joel 2 ; 28. 

That has always been so, because 
youth is the time when everything seems 
full of promise. " High hopes in youth 
are the stock-in-trade with which we are 
meant to open the business of life." A 
boy is not a boy, a girl is not a girl, a 
man is not a man, without a vision, with- 
out an enthusiastic pursuit of something 
beyond present powers, without an ideal. 

Indeed, it is this capacity for a vision 
that makes us human. It is a part proof 
of a spiritual nature within us. There is a 
restless striving after a goal. Man is made 
for God, and the heart is restless until it 
rests in Him. 

It is of this vision that I would speak. 
" I grow old, learning," said Solon, the 
wise man of Athens. This vision that 
opens up before us changes as we change, 



124 CHARACTER 

grows as we grow. Its development is 
in a line with the mental, moral and 
spiritual nature which we cherish, and as 
we live we learn, if we be wise. There is 
no greater sign of manhood than humility. 
The boy or the girl who " knows it all," has 
little chance in life. It is a mark of wisdom 
in every calling, whether it be that of the 
housekeeper, or the stenographer, or the 
business man, that there be a willing mind. 
The more we know, the greater becomes 
our ignorance, because we see the bound- 
less area of truth. There is a real beauty 
in that word, " Commencement," as ap- 
plied to this present event in your lives, 
because while it stands as the crown of 
your past, it is but the beginning of the 
larger life before you. Yes, every day of 
our life should be the commencement of 
a greater work, a larger usefulness, a 
fuller life. 

Now, the Vision is at the bottom of it 
all. What is the vision that each one of 
us has ? Is it the vision of a material good ? 
This country is money-mad, and the boys 
and girls are being brought up in that 



VISIONS AND CHARACTER 1 25 

atmosphere. To be comfortable, to have a 
pleasant home, to get away from the so- 
called " drudgery" of life, to get rich quick, 
to have a good time, to be able to forget 
trouble and hardship and sorrow, and to 
be entertained, to pursue pleasure as an 
end and happiness as a goal — I am afraid 
that this is the vision which rises before the 
minds and hearts of many who graduate 
from our schools and colleges. 

The prophet Joel when he spoke of the 
young men as seers of visions had his 
mind's eye upon the days of the Messiah, 
when righteousness should be established 
in the earth. To be content with anything 
less than this vision is to show our inferi- 
ority. I don't wonder that murder and 
dishonesty and all the vices and crimes of 
the world are so rife, when the Material is 
the stuff of which our visions are made. I 
don't wonder that the " yellow journal " 
with its false philosophy and seeds of dis- 
content, and with its tales of horror and 
cruelty and impure suggestion is the popu- 
lar sheet which is devoured by our youth, 
when so many parents hold up before their 



126 CHARACTER 

children the ** material " as the aim of life ; 
when by their habitual absence from the 
Church-worship and work and by their de- 
votion to the ** cares " and '' pleasures " of 
life they set such a distorted standard. If 
we be satisfied with a material vision, we 
shall be material ourselves. That which 
we pursue, that do we become. To be 
satisfied with money, or gain or comfort 
or pleasure as the end of our life, is to lose 
the great and glorious vision which trans- 
figures and transforms. Can you conceive 
of Sir Galahad having been the hero he 
was, if his search had been for a lump of 
gold? 

Men say, '* I don't care anything about 
money in itself, but I want what money 
can buy." This is a specious argument 
in many a case because it is nothing but a 
more respectable way of saying, '' I want 
comfort and pleasure and ease." " Seek 
ye first the Kingdom of God and His 
righteousness" is the only safe method 
for preserving a high and noble ideal and 
vision. 

When we step from the material to the 



VISIONS AND CHARACTER 1 27 

mental we advance. There comes a time 
in every boy's life when the game of foot- 
ball or tennis which once he followed with 
tremendous interest, sinks into a second 
place. There dawns a day when the girl's 
fondness for the dance and the frolic and 
the fun does not satisfy. School training 
aims higher than mere physical develop- 
ment. Mental growth, the tone of the 
mind, the calibre of the thought, is what the 
school should strive for. * To teach us to 
like literature, mathematics, typewriting, 
stenography, geography, history, compo- 
sition, is not the end of a high-school train- 
ing. To show us how to make a living is 
not the function of the school. To train 
and develop the mind, to teach us to think 
high and noble thoughts, to give us the 
vision of knowledge, to make us love 
truth and to philosophize about it and 
track it out into its hidden goal, and to 
find out more and more about nature and 
nature's God and His mysterious laws and 
purposes, — this is what education should 
do. The Greek of old knew the ** beautiful " 
and followed it. The moral degeneration 



128 CHARACTER 

which he also knew was because of the 
divorce he made between the truly beauti- 
ful and the truly good. True beauty is 
good. Beauty itself may be unmoral, it 
may be immoral, but true beauty is always 
good. Just as the body has its " vision " 
of perfection in health, so has the mind its 
" vision " in logical, ennobling thought. 
One of the greatest difficulties in dealing 
with men in business, in all life, is often 
the incapacity for clear, logical, concen- 
trated thinking. It is better for us to have 
the '' vision " of learning and influence and 
the power which comes from knowledge 
than to rest content with the material 
vision. Is the ** vision " which to-day we 
cherish, the vision of power and influence 
that comes with mind ? Is it a vision of 
selfish isolation of thought and the power 
to think ? 

Let me call attention to that vision which 
is the highest of all, that vision which the 
prophet Joel had when he wrote, *' Your 
young men shall see visions." It is the 
vision of duty and character. It is the 
vision which Isaiah saw when he beheld 



VISIONS AND CHARACTER 129 

"the throne high and Hfted up," and cried 
in answer, '* Here am I, send me." Our 
visions, our ideals are marks of ourselves. 
Tell me what a boy is thinking of and I 
will tell you what he is. Tell me what a 
girl is struggling for, and I will tell you 
what she will become. I am very fond of 
that story of Hawthorne's *'The Great 
Stone Face," — how nature had carved 
high up on the mountain, overhanging the 
village, a great stone face, and how when 
the sunbeams played about it, it seemed 
warmed into Hfe and breathed a blessing 
on the simple village folk beneath. There 
was a tradition among them that, some 
day, the live image of the stone face would 
come, — a great man who should free peo- 
ple from their pett}^ jealousies and quarrels 
and deliver them from their enemies. He 
would be recognized, it was said, by the 
resemblance to the great stone face on the 
mountain. A simple village lad, taught 
the tradition by a pious mother, was wont 
to gaze at every opportunity at the face on 
the mountain, and wonder when the great 
and good man, the live image of the 



I30 CHARACTER 

Stone face, would come. Thus studying 
the face and thinking about it, the youth 
grew to manhood, from manhood to middle 
age, and to old age to be at last recog- 
nized himself as the live image of the great 
stone face. He had so studied the stone 
face, and so wound it as it were into his 
existence, that he became like it. It is 
thus with our visions. School life is a 
failure if it does not give us a vision, — a 
vision of usefulness and unselfishness, and 
purity, and manhood and womanhood. 
Commencement is a hollow mockery if it 
starts us not forth with the vision of char- 
acter and duty as the noblest thing in life. 
Outward success is nothing, if we have not 
a noble heart and a clean conscience. 
What we are, not what we have or what 
we get — is the all in all of life. 

These visions — that of material gain, and 
that of mental power and that of character, 
are ever before us. Which shall gain the 
mastery is the question. The vision we 
constantly gaze at is the vision which will 
make or mar us. Do you know that scene 
in the ** Passing of Arthur" where the hero 



VISIONS AND CHARACTER 131 

on his death-bed sends Sir Bedevere to find 
the sword " Excalibur " and to cast it into 
the lake ? 

When the knight sees that beautiful 
weapon, which 

'* Sparkled keen with frost against the hilt ; 
For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, 
Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work 
Of subtlest jewelry," — 

his eyes are dazzled at the sight, and hid- 
ing the sword he goes back to the king. 
The knight was tempted by the material 
greed, and lost sight of the noble obedi- 
ence which was his duty. 

Again the King sends him forth to fling 
Excalibur far into the lake and again Sir 
Bedevere fails to carry out the hest. He 
says : 

*• And if indeed I cast the brand away, 
Surely a precious thing, one worthy note. 
Should thus be lost forever from the earth. 
King Arthur's sword, Excalibur ! winning rever- 
ence ! 
But now much honor and much fame were lost." 



132 CHARACTER 

The vision of power and influence bids 
him halt I It fain would keep him from 
carrying out the king's command. 

Once more, sent forth by the dying 
King, he hesitates not, 

*' And leaping down tlie ridges lightly, plunged 
Among the buh ush beds, and clutcli'd the sword, 
And strongly wheel'd and threw it." 

At last armed with his manhood, the vision 
of duty and obedience is followed and the 
knight is victorious in the power of it to 
carry out the king's command. 

These visions three would charm us. 
Each in turn wdll struggle for the mastery. 
Each in turn wall seek to sway our life. 
Life is a warfare for you and for me, and 
temptation will test our manhood. 

To see the vision of Character and duty 
above the vision of the material and the 
vision of the mental, — this is victory, this 
is worth, this is eternal life. 



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